There's always ups and downs in any journey as you traverse the path you've chosen.

This is no more true for a walk to the top of a ridge line than for your digital journey into the cloud. As an application developer, or as an operations specialist, you have to wonder how to get from zero to that plateau of cloud happiness.

Let's take a closer look at an easy 10-step program to get you up and running your own application delivery platform in the cloud, even though it's going to be a local experience. This first article will lay out the 10 steps with subsequent articles presenting each step in detail. You'll be able to follow along as your happiness grows with each following article.

10 Steps to Happiness

Gather round as we traverse the 10 steps to AppDev in the Cloud happiness!

The program here takes you from nothing at all on your local machine to the full application delivery platform using open technologies such as JBoss middleware, containers, an open PaaS, and more. Without further delay, these are the 10 steps:

Get a Cloud

Use a Service Catalog

Add on Cloud Operations

Container-based Business Logic

Container-based Process Improvement

Human Resource Examples

Retail Online Web Shop

Online Travel Bookings

Financial Services Examples

Agile Cloud Service Integration

So stay tuned, this list will be tackled one-by-one over the coming weeks and months to provide you with a clear and steady direction towards your very own application delivery in the cloud happiness.